Homelessness

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Biden’s Climate Change Agenda Is Inspired by AOC, California

Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden last week unveiled his version of the Green New Deal.  The plan, which can be summed up as AOC meets CA, shows just how far Biden is willing to lunge toward the left coast’s environmental agenda. AOC’s Green New Deal, criticized for being light on ...
Blog

SB 1410 Would Give Renters a Decade to Pay Rent

When Tim Anaya first told me about a California senate bill that would give renters who lost their jobs during the coronavirus shutdown until 2034 to pay back their rent, I thought I didn’t hear him right: “Did you say 2024?” (I thought four years was plenty.) But yes, dear readers, he said 2034. It’s no typo either. SB 1410 would force landlords to enter into a “rent stabilization agreement” with the tenant, and prohibits the landlord ...
Blog

A Successful Program to Reclaim the Lives of High School Dropouts

Recently, I attended the graduation ceremony for the Discovery ChalleNGe Academy, which targets high school dropouts and produces quality-educated young people with strong values, life skills, and self-discipline.  With so many children falling through the cracks of conventional education, DCA and its sister schools across the country offer these young ...
Blog

What We’re Watching – June 26

Rowena Itchon – “Project Home: 3D Printing the Future” I ran across this teaser on the upcoming documentary “Project Home: 3D Printing the Future” by the Moving Picture Institute.  The first 3D printed homes are located in a neighborhood in southern Mexico.  A way to solve California’s homeless problem? Ben Smithwick ...
Business & Economics

California continues to launch businesses, residents into other states

Elon Musk is not alone in his frustration with the way California treats businesses. But he makes the news, and the announcement that SpaceX is abandoning plans to build rockets in Los Angeles and will instead make them in Texas and Florida is another high-profile setback for the state. One ...
Blog

Coronavirus Chronicles: States Want Bailout for Past Profligate Spending

Even as House members consider themselves non-essential workers (they’ve decided to vote from home), it hasn’t stopped some lawmakers from coming up with bad ideas for the next stimulus package, including relief for states and municipalities with pre-existing economic conditions. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced last week at his ...
Blog

Is Coronavirus Triggering De-Facto Early Release for Thousands of Offenders?

In recent years, California has undergone a significant change in its approach to criminal justice. As PRI’s Kerry Jackson writes in his book, Living in Fear in California, once California’s prison population reached an all-time high of 160,000 in 2006, “a May 2011 U.S. Supreme Court ruling . . . ...
California

California must do a better job of helping homeless children

By Lance Izumi and Michele Steeb As Gov. Gavin Newsom noted in his 2020 State of the State address, California had the second highest increase in state homelessness in 2019. But a newly released report by State Auditor Elaine Howle found that California public schools undercounted homeless students by at ...
Blog

What We’re Watching – The Best of PRI’s 2020 CA Ideas in Action Conference

PRI’s second annual “California Ideas in Action” conference was held a few weeks back.  This year’s conference featured PRI scholars, policy experts, and real life changemakers discussing how free market ideas can address the new decade’s major challenges in California – homelessness, the future of work, education, health care, and ...
Blog

Leave the Toy Aisle Alone, Please

As a former legislative staffer in the California State Assembly, I often asked myself when reviewing legislation, “do we really need this bill?” I asked myself the same question when I came across the introduction of a bill mandating gender-neutral toy sections in department stores. Assembly Bill 2826 by Asm. ...
Blog

Biden’s Climate Change Agenda Is Inspired by AOC, California

Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden last week unveiled his version of the Green New Deal.  The plan, which can be summed up as AOC meets CA, shows just how far Biden is willing to lunge toward the left coast’s environmental agenda. AOC’s Green New Deal, criticized for being light on ...
Blog

SB 1410 Would Give Renters a Decade to Pay Rent

When Tim Anaya first told me about a California senate bill that would give renters who lost their jobs during the coronavirus shutdown until 2034 to pay back their rent, I thought I didn’t hear him right: “Did you say 2024?” (I thought four years was plenty.) But yes, dear readers, he said 2034. It’s no typo either. SB 1410 would force landlords to enter into a “rent stabilization agreement” with the tenant, and prohibits the landlord ...
Blog

A Successful Program to Reclaim the Lives of High School Dropouts

Recently, I attended the graduation ceremony for the Discovery ChalleNGe Academy, which targets high school dropouts and produces quality-educated young people with strong values, life skills, and self-discipline.  With so many children falling through the cracks of conventional education, DCA and its sister schools across the country offer these young ...
Blog

What We’re Watching – June 26

Rowena Itchon – “Project Home: 3D Printing the Future” I ran across this teaser on the upcoming documentary “Project Home: 3D Printing the Future” by the Moving Picture Institute.  The first 3D printed homes are located in a neighborhood in southern Mexico.  A way to solve California’s homeless problem? Ben Smithwick ...
Business & Economics

California continues to launch businesses, residents into other states

Elon Musk is not alone in his frustration with the way California treats businesses. But he makes the news, and the announcement that SpaceX is abandoning plans to build rockets in Los Angeles and will instead make them in Texas and Florida is another high-profile setback for the state. One ...
Blog

Coronavirus Chronicles: States Want Bailout for Past Profligate Spending

Even as House members consider themselves non-essential workers (they’ve decided to vote from home), it hasn’t stopped some lawmakers from coming up with bad ideas for the next stimulus package, including relief for states and municipalities with pre-existing economic conditions. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced last week at his ...
Blog

Is Coronavirus Triggering De-Facto Early Release for Thousands of Offenders?

In recent years, California has undergone a significant change in its approach to criminal justice. As PRI’s Kerry Jackson writes in his book, Living in Fear in California, once California’s prison population reached an all-time high of 160,000 in 2006, “a May 2011 U.S. Supreme Court ruling . . . ...
California

California must do a better job of helping homeless children

By Lance Izumi and Michele Steeb As Gov. Gavin Newsom noted in his 2020 State of the State address, California had the second highest increase in state homelessness in 2019. But a newly released report by State Auditor Elaine Howle found that California public schools undercounted homeless students by at ...
Blog

What We’re Watching – The Best of PRI’s 2020 CA Ideas in Action Conference

PRI’s second annual “California Ideas in Action” conference was held a few weeks back.  This year’s conference featured PRI scholars, policy experts, and real life changemakers discussing how free market ideas can address the new decade’s major challenges in California – homelessness, the future of work, education, health care, and ...
Blog

Leave the Toy Aisle Alone, Please

As a former legislative staffer in the California State Assembly, I often asked myself when reviewing legislation, “do we really need this bill?” I asked myself the same question when I came across the introduction of a bill mandating gender-neutral toy sections in department stores. Assembly Bill 2826 by Asm. ...
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